I am just an old gal, with some time on her hands, and loose thoughts from time to time... Wife, mother of 8, grandmother of 20 and great-grandmother of 22

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Butter or Margarine?????

Ok, here is your question for the day....is it butter or is itmargarine that you prefer?

This past week's email has brought two emails about howbutter was better for you. Wish I had saved the cartoon thatcame with it. Something about trusting farmer more thanscientist.

I have ate margarine all my life. I can remember when I was a childthat butter was rationed. So margarine came into play. It came in abag, with a little red dot in the corner of the bag. You wereto crush the little dot and it ran into the white of the margarine.That made it turn yellow like butter. I guess people didn't like thesickly white look stuff.

All my marriage life I have used margarine. And so far I havemade it pretty well. I am almost 70, so I must not be in the52% of margarine users that has a heart attack under the age of60 ..as the email talked about.

So after two women in my life who are die heart butter users,gave me a hard time about how bad margarine is for me. Idecided yesterday to pick up some butter and give it a decentfair trial. See to me, butter taste a little bit better than lard.

When I went to the store last night to buy butter, I found outtheir prices are about the same as margarine is now. Use tobe a lot more. Another reason why I didn't use it.

But finding just butter was not quite as easy as I thought. Ilike the softer butter/margarine. Well, it comes in olive oil orcananola oil... what is with that? Isn't butter suppose to bethe item from the cows milk...period? why do they add oil?Doesn't that defeat the purpose?

I found a tub of BUTTER, nothing added. Whipped butter, calledChallenge Butter. It said on the tub.. 'from cows NOT TREATEDwith the growth hormone rbST. Well, that was reassuring.

So this morning I tried it on bread. Now I want to give this a fairand decent trial, so I will try it on several items before I make mydecision... but got to say, so far, not impressed.

And the read out isn't good either. Calories.. 45 for my brand ofmargarine (Brummel&Brown) with yogurt. and Butter?..70.Same for fat. Both have the same amount of fat as they have in calories.Margarine has no cholesterol.... butter has 20mgs.Margarine has 1.5 Sat. fat...butter has 5g.both have 0 carbs. and butter wins the sodium race by having58mg... where as margarine has 90mg.Vit. A butter..5% and margarine 10%... so as I see it themargarine is winning the numbers better than butter... butI am in this for the taste. So I will see in a week, as that iswhat I decided to be fair and decent trial.

3 comments:

Butter all the way. I grew up on margarine and occasionally had butter when someone had it on the table. A few years ago I started buying butter when I started finding it regularly for under $2. I started using butter exclusively. Then I went back to margarine. Ended up tossing the tub as I couldn't stand the thick oily taste and mouth feel of it.

I buy butter in cubes, stash most of it in the deep freeze until I need some and then pull out a cube or two as I need them. I am considering a butter bell so I can have soft, spreadable butter when I want it as I almost never remember to pull out some to soften.

The only time I have margarine in the house is when I have a friend who visits who is allergic to all things dairy.

By far butter which is so expensive but why should it be. It is natural from the cow no chemicals. Oh, wait that is organic butter. Why must those food manufacuturers add so much junk to our food that is making us sick? Why can't they keep it the way nature meant it to be. So to me it is butter good old fashion butter like my great grandma use to make oh, butter glorious butter. CAC

I was told as a little child that the margarine was not colored and you had to color it yourself because the dairy industry lobby had influenced government. The colorless margarine was not very appealing. Does anyone have a picture of one of the margarine packs with the red dot. Incidently, I am a butter user because I prefer the taste.